ECT

In the old days, ECT or electroshock therapy was used to lift depression. The idea was that the electric shock waves would joggle the brain a little and the patient would then begin to be able to think in different ways....hopefully, in more positive ways. Over the years, I was given 20 shock therapy sessions.

I was laid on a table with a pillow under my knees. After being given a light anesthetic, electric shock waves were administered to the sides of my head with small machines that resembled head phones. An attendant stood by to make sure that the small grand mal sizure that was sure to follow did not knock me off the table or cause me to jerk so badly that I broke any of my bones. I was told that my memory would be fuzzy for a day or so and that my walk would be a little uncertain and then things would return to normal. And that was what happened. I trusted the doctors, had no fear of the treatment, had little discomfort afterwards and the depression went away. I didn't know about the grand mal seizures until years later and then I realized that my brain had been intentionally (with my permission) damaged twenty times.

When I saw a ECT patient lose her ALL her short term and ALL her l0ng term memory FOREVER, I was horrified and frightened. What damage had been done to my brain that could never be repaired? How long would it be before the damage became manifest? At the age of 68, almost 35 years later, my increasing inability to hold onto names or to remember how to get to someone's house I have visited in the recent past may be the result of increasing age or may be a long term effect of the ECT. I don't believe I will ever know the answer to that question.

When I see in the papers that a form of ECT (deep-brain stimulation) is now being proposed for a type of illness called OCD, I fear for the ramifications and extension of such treatments. How many kinds of patients will be electrified without knowledge of long term effects? Is this kind of treatment getting out of control?